Monsters and Mind Games: MM Romantic Fantasy by Emily Brandish

Author:Emily Brandish [Brandish, Emily]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-08-14T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 23

Dawn broke over the crest of the hill and a breeze stirred the grass, rattling dry oak leaves across the ground. The smell of smoke drifted from the burning control shack. Kilgore exhaled through his nose and closed his eyes.

Ambrose wanted to touch his face, to ask if he was okay, but waited. Kilgore probably needed a minute. So did he. Their failure and all its sprawling implications hadn’t fully sunk in yet. Like a flash flood over sun-baked clay, it wouldn’t absorb.

Grist sat on the ground with his knees hugged to his chest, staring at the tower.

“Well, shit.” He whipped his head towards Ambrose, eyes narrowed. “We’d better get moving.” His voice was hoarse from protracted screaming.

“Where?” Ambrose asked incredulously. We failed.

“Anywhere to start,” Grist said. He rose to his feet and dusted himself off. “If more gyle arrive, this isn’t a good look.” He gestured to the corpses strewn everywhere, the burning building. “Then we make haste for Tir-Asleen.”

“No. The Capitol,” Kilgore said, sitting up. If the mission failed, they were to report back to the King.

“The engineer fired the beacon, you fool,” Grist rasped. “Now the queen is on her way. We need to get to Tir-Asleen and destroy her.”

Ambrose barked a crazed-sounding laugh. “You think we’re taking orders from you?” He got to his feet and swayed in place. His head throbbed.

“If you don’t stop her, she’s going to pump out a million eggs and destroy your planet.”

“Huh. Where have I heard that before?” Ambrose shot back. “I thought if this plan failed, we were supposed to be doomed. Yet here we are.”

Behind him, Kilgore rose to his feet with a hiss of pain. He clutched an arm around his ribs and searched the ground, presumably for the sword he’d dropped.

“Listen, you prick-eared twerp—”

“No, you listen!” Frustration spilled over into anger. His mother’s fury vibrated in his bones. “None of this worked out the way you said—”

<All of it has!>

“—So either your plans are garbage, or this is just another set-up. Either way, we’re done with you.”

Grist shook his head, setting his mouth-tentacles swaying. “We haven’t stopped the invasion yet. You’re still oath-bound to work with me.”

“Like hell we are! We’re contracted to do this mission. The mission failed. You broke your end of the deal.”

“The mission is to stop the invasion. Killing the queen will have the same result. Now that they’ve fired the beacon, we’ve still got seven days before she’s set in place and procreating.”

Ambrose looked to Kilgore for backup, but the orc was eyeing one of the orc-grubs warily, perhaps wondering why it wasn’t attacking. The grub rolled its iridescent eyes and peered back at him. It was like looking into a bizarre mirror—one orc wearing human-forged steel, the other in traditional garb but with a squid for a head. Kilgore muttered something to himself in Orcish.

“Stuff your pride and use your head, Fairday,” the gyle said. “It’s not too late to fix this, but we have to go. Now.”

Grist touched Ambrose’s mind with a tendril of thought.

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